


31 Day Prompt Fill (2020 February)

by StupidUFO



Category: Original Work
Genre: Ambiguity, Animal Death, Bugs & Insects, Curses, Gen, Ghosts, Monsters, POV Second Person, Possible Character Death, Prompt Fill, Transformation, forest creatures - Freeform, magical/mystical events, mostly creature feature, prompt, some blood, some horror elements, some times it gets existential, some violence, unexplained event
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 8,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29515644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StupidUFO/pseuds/StupidUFO
Summary: Unrelated short one-shots based on a random prompt list I found on the internet then I mostly forgot about.
Kudos: 1





	1. The Maggot Pit

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to get into writing, and I thought that the best exercise for that was to do these prompt lists. I was writing whatever came to my mind freely, so some of them are silly and nonsensical. I was also in a mood so some lean more towards horror or mystery.
> 
> There isn't much substance here, I just want to post them. That's all. If you decide to read them then more power to you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Antler)
> 
> A young man is cursed.

The bottom of the hole was full of squirming maggots. They twisted in the pit with primal hunger, each one in a hurry to grab at whatever chunk of flesh was left of the carcass.

He watched them with the fascination of a bored man with nothing better to do.

Standing on the edge he swayed a little when his head tipped, and he nearly fell in losing his balance. He wasn’t afraid of that, however. This grave is the shallowest graves out of them all, barely enough to have the animal inside covered. If he were to fall he could just stand up and step out, but he would be covered in those disgusting creatures. Maggots, they would eat him as well if only they could get to him.

A shudder ran through him at the thought. His head tipped, he lost his balance and nearly fell.

There was nothing else to do here.

The next seven days he wandered the forest. He could only vaguely remember his house on the edge of the village with that little river.

He washed his clothes and sheets and hung them up to dry.

The weeds snagged at the bottom of his pants. Branches scratched his face as he stumbled into them. His head was heavier by every second, and his skull ached under the unfamiliar pressure.

The river. He remembers passing it.

The wind will carry away his clothes if he does not take them in for the night. Everybody would laugh at him for that. But that’s a cruel thought; they would pity him more than anything else. That sad, silly man, living alone, afraid of the woods.

The pit was a distant thought on the seventh day. Yet on the eighth, he woke up inside it.

He shrieked and jumped, but the growths on his head were too heavy now to just leap out the pit as a fine young man would. He crawled out instead like a pathetic animal. The maggots were everywhere even under his clothes and some nibbled at his lips and ears and eyelids. They must have thought he was fine food.

Panicking, he got to his feet and he shook the pests out of his clothes. But some clung on with their tiny teeth and he still felt them on his skin. He couldn’t take it anymore and he got out of his tattered, dirty clothes – underwear and all, modesty be damned - and threw them into the pit. If they wanted it so much they could have it. It was as good as theirs as far as he was concerned.

He should go already. His house waited for him, his chores, and his drying clothes. People must be looking for him by now; he was gone for far too long.

The next seven days he wandered the forest.

He remembered the river that ran by his house on the edge of the village. The forest was next to it. And it always loomed over his little home ominously with its tall, sickishly thin pine trees.

“That forest is like a sick old man,” he remembered somebody saying. “You can see death when you look at it. It eats up joy just by existing.”

“Somebody should burn it down then if it’s so evil.”

Rarely was he disturbed, as he was living at the edge of the village in a house barely the size of a cottage. When it was built, by his own hands nonetheless, the forest was lively and he was inclined to feel lively too. He enjoyed the company of none but the birds in the trees.

Back then he liked being alone.

He stumbled on the weeds and roots. Naked he felt ashamed and scared, but he never wished more than ever before for some unfortunate, blessed savior to stumble upon him and rescue him. To take him back to the life he once had before it becomes a distant memory.

The growth on his head became heavier and heavier. When he grabbed it he thought it resembled an antler. It felt more like two sets of tumors on top of his skull than anything else.

It wouldn’t break off.

He was so hungry. He was so thirsty.

The pit was a distant thought on the seventh day. Yet on the eighth, he woke up inside it.

He screamed and crawled his way out. His antlers bigger yet pulled him down and he desperately clawed at the ground; he was still pulled down by the weight. But he was out and he shook down the maggots attached to his skin.

He looked down into the pit. A shallow grave with an animal’s body in it. The bones were peeking through the skin, the insects were crawling under and on top and around. The ground was disturbed by what looked like claw marks, but it was only the mess he made as he tried to escape.

“You have your carcass!” he shouted at the disgusting creatures as if they could understand him. “Be happy with it!”

The next seven days he wandered the forest.

His antlers were so big and so heavy he could only walk hunched. He walked only short distances from one tree to another and he would lean on each for support.

“Somebody should burn it down.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he remembers somebody saying. “Sicknesses pass. Everything will be fine with time.”

Once he saw a deer. A red deer.

Just over the river where he was washing his clothes.

The trees opened before him like a curtain. A hallway opened before him and called him to the creature.

He crossed the river. He walked with the deer.

It seemed as if he was in a dream. None of it felt real as it happened.

But that animal was dead now. He dug him a shallow grave.

He could only walk on all fours now; he was so tired he thought he should just lie in the pit himself. The maggots would find him anyway.

It appeared he was more an animal than a human. He wondered if anybody found him would they look at him as a lost man or a creature of the forest.

The sick pine trees loomed over him.

The pit was a distant thought on the seventh day. Yet on the eighth, he woke up inside it.


	2. Beetles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Beetles)
> 
> You witness something you cannot understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhat sentimental description of insect death.

There were so many of them. It was an infestation for sure, but what was odd that only that one orange tree in the entire orchard had them crawling on it. They were fascinating to watch as they stumbled all around, climbing up and down on the tree in a seemingly aimless pattern, each in a hurry to find a spot on the bark for themselves.

You could watch them for hours.

They were mesmerizing as they were running about. Who knows what got into the little fellas. What part of their tiny insect brain fired up and gave each the desire to cover every inch of this particular tree in their bodies until you could only see the black beetles and none of the bark.

This mystery fascinated you and as you watched you grew closer to the tiny things. You thought you could even recognize some of them just by how they crawled around or how they looked up at you with beady eyes.

Nevertheless, Grandmother said they had to go.

“They will breed and cover the orchard. Best we take care of them now rather than be sorry later.”

So the deed was done.

An exterminator was called; they took care of the problem in an afternoon. You stood by and watched as they sprayed the beetles with a deadly poison, and you watched as they continued on crawling unaware of what was happening until that faithful second the toxins took effect. Then their limbs curled and went stiff. All movement stopped and only some brave souls held on, staggered forward to continue on with the mission. But it was not meant to be.

They fell to the ground; they landed with a soft thud on the grass that was heard by none but those who fell alongside them. Their tiny legs reached to the sky, dead and stiff. Some still struggled and kicked out their appendages in a primal need to return to that orange tree. Beady eyes looked up in one last final plea, asking for salvation from their fate. But the great orange tree was silent.

They were cleaned up and as if nothing happened. 

You don’t remember if you have ever seen a beetle in your home town since that summer. 

That orange tree never bears fruits again.


	3. Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Shadow)
> 
> Something is strange about you.

It was your body that cast that twisted shadow onto the meadow’s ground.

You turned your head and pondered: where you always this tall and thin? Was your back always arched? Was your neck always thins long, winding like a snake as your turn to take a closer look? Could you always see the joint where your thigh connected to your hip? Were you eating enough?

Strange. When did you become like that?

Then you remember the floodlights aimed at you. 

Somebody screamed. A gun was fired. To you, it didn’t matter; you were long gone, running back into the woods.


	4. Tranquil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Herbs)
> 
> The sweet smell of flowers fills the room.

One by one he set them up to dry out. Bouquets of flowers and weeds hang from a stick in the corner of his cottage. He usually cooks there, over the old iron stove, and his bed wasn’t far either so that he can make use of the warmth of the fire.

He took a moment to admire his work. Batches of nettle, mint, lemongrass, rosemary, and lavender rested on the suspended stick, tied with twine. All were handpicked by him from the meadows.

The sweet smell of flowers filled the room. It will stay for a couple of days then the plant would start to dry and the fresh smell would be gone.

He should be cleaning up, but that could wait. For now, he only sat down on his bed and he enjoyed the scent.

On the other side of the room, the setting sun cast orange lights through the window. The forest line started to peek in.

He stands in a dark hallway before a dark room. A thin moonlight falls through the window right on the shape of writhing form on the ground. Thousands of thin, slimy cords twist into one another; pushing and pulling as if they are moved by some engine deep within themselves compelling themselves to move endlessly. A stench came from the room, something rancid or like the smell of death.


	5. The Storm That Takes it All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Pumpkin)
> 
> This is the end.

You can hear the wind rustle through the trees. The forest on the other side of the clearing is a black shape of jagged edges swaying violently in the wake of the upcoming storm. Dark clouds swallowed the sky beyond them. The storm was advancing faster by the minute and soon, like a curtain, closed around over your head.

In the distance, a white flag was raised. 

You turn so that you could see it sharp as it stood out in the grayscale picture your world has turned into.

The tower on which the flag was erected, standing its ground in the throes of the wind, was silent. By now they would have rung the bell in a warning for the storm. This time they were silent in mourning. 

Your heart clenches at the thought. No more bell ringer, it seems.

The wind tears into your hair throwing it around your face as you turn to face the storm again. And the forest, the place you spent countless childhood summer afternoons picking berries and chasing around hapless insects, now felt like a stranger.

You rather be here than cower in the village like everybody else. 

The yellowing grass around you gave away to the harsh wind. The skeletal stalks snapped and were swept away like thoughts in a deranged mind, never to be seen again.

You will be swept away like them soon, you know that. But until that final moment comes you will stand your ground, proud and strong like the tower whose bell ringer will never ring the bell again, and who in the face of this monster stands blackened, solemn and dour, flying a white flag as the last bastion of us, who are still living.

You might be swept away. In the upcoming years, nobody might believe that you were even there.

Around you the clearing was dead. The remains of unpicked pumpkins were rotting away with every second as you stood. But in your head, you can already see the next year with the meadow green and lush once again, and there is another gardener in your place planting pumpkins, squashes, and other plants to flourish. 

You are sure about that. That’s the only thing you can be sure about.


	6. The Rabbit Reincarnated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Bones)
> 
> Your spirit is finally freed.

Unearthed from the cold ground, your bones laid barren to the word. You were looking down at your skull and the crack that split it apart. The bone had long since been stripped of the fur, skin, and flesh. The rest were scattered here and there, brought up by the water that washes away the river bed.

You look down and keep on looking. What an odd thing is to see your own skull. Even when it was apparent that you will remain on this world you never thought that you would one day you would be seeing yourself like this. No living creature is ever prepared to see that. 

You aren’t sure how you are feeling about it, or how you should feel about it.

The moon was over the three lines. It was beautiful, like always. Today you find it prettier.

You ignore your newly unearthed bones, instead, you run. 

You feel freer than you did since the days you died. As if the water washed away whatever was chaining you to that spot. And as if by magic you are free. All it took was patience you guess, but you never had a concept for time outside from day and night and the passing seasons. And since you died all those mattered even less. 

So you run. And you keep on running through meadows and forests and village streets as if the whole world just became yours and there was nothing that could hold you back. 

Once you have shed the shackles of mortal life. Now you are free of the chains of mourning.

The world is yours. And you have only eyes for the eternal plains before you: the land of the free and fearless.


	7. As The Night Goes On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Moonlit)
> 
> You have a nice sleep before bad things happen.

The candle wax had long since cooled on the table. The candle burned to the core. You were laying on the desk, falling asleep midway in the writing of your first novel. You observe the scene from afar, detached from it in a dream-like haze as if it wasn’t your own sleeping body you are looking at.

As odd as the whole scene was there is a strangely familiar feel to it. You think you have been here before, staring at yourself in your sleep.

The moonlight shines in through the window landing on you, casting your face into a harsh shadow. Even so, you could tell it was you, unmistakable – dream logic you suppose, that these kinds of knowledge you are aware of without being told. 

The window was left open, the curtains move in the night breeze. You can feel the cold from the other side of the room where you are standing in the dark. You are going to catch something sleeping like that. But you don’t care about that right now.

Tranquility runs through your veins. You close your eyes and let the feeling take you. All was fine in your tiny word.

You don’t know how long you stood there like that, but when you opened your eyes you saw a hand retreating out the window.

You do a double-take, now more aware than ever in this dream state of yours.

Did you see that right? Was there really a spindly hand reaching into the window? It surely couldn’t. You wait but nothing happens, but now your peace had been shattered. You fixate on the window, and on the light falling in the window, hoping that some wayward shadow can tell you what is lurking outside.

It was deadly quiet. The air cold.

You couldn’t take your eyes off the window.

There was a disruption in the light.


	8. The Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Witchcraft)
> 
> You are performing a spell. It's probably going to go well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer that I know nothing about witchcraft/Wicca. I just wrote something that came to mind.

You waited seven days and seven nights sleeplessly for this moment. Sitting in your chair seems like second nature to you now but you couldn’t break your concentration. Before you, a mirror, one of those body-length dressing mirrors you can find in cloth shops, was hanging on your wall.

Candles would have been better, but you couldn’t risk looking away from the figure sitting on the chair instead of you. So the lamp of your bare bedroom hangs over you two had to do.

You have been victorious so far. The clock in the corner is ticking down, the moon is high on the last, Sunday night, and you can feel the time for the alarm to ring approached.

Your chair was enclosed into several circles of different ingredients. The most inner circle was a plain salt circle, next comes a circle made of rosemary’s, lavenders, and other herbs that you collected freshly from the fields before-hand – the smell of the herbs were so thick that you can still smell it seven days later along with the incense you set aside to burn down in the first hours of the ritual. It was expected that some things would change as time went on. 

Next you placed a protective circle of runes, made by yours truly just for this occasion, and laid down in chalk. This was followed by another circle of salt mixed with herbs – just for extra measure, you didn’t want any of the creatures you saw in this past seven days from the corner of your eyes to get closer to you.

You never flinched even when they got so close to you that you could feel their touch hover over your skin. But you knew that your spells will protect you and the fact that you are here proves it.

The alarm went off.

The figure in the mirror stretches.

“Finally,” it says.


	9. The Forest is Haunted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Ghost)
> 
> Your life carries a secret, a secret you cannot remember.

Since the day you were born the woods beyond your house were haunted. Or so you were told. You never dared to go there at night. Mainly for the fact that you were a shy and nervous child growing up – something you attributed getting from the people all around you and the strange ways they would all stare at you as you walked with your parent’s down the streets. Then when you got older you didn’t care about such local superstitious nonsense. You had more important things to think about, like your circle of friends you got once you were sent to school after being homeschooled for most of your life.

Life started to get good. You were always alone as a kid, you remember. You weren’t allowed to do many things that you later learned other kids were allowed to do; such things as playing outside, going on camping trips, going on playdates, and sleepovers. You were only allowed to go out with your parents. 

That all changed one morning. You can’t remember what happened that allowed you to start living like every other ordinary child in your town, but it also meant that you can finally spend time with kids your age. You stumbled along the way but you managed, you had friends, and a social life so all was good as far as you are concerned.

Now if you look back at it you think that you remember one of your parents was always with you. They would never let you out of their sight.

They said that you could get sick, but not like other kids.

You don’t remember much more.

The woods behind your house were haunted. You remember this loud and clear. You would sit by the window and watch the tree lines waiting to see something spooky until mom or dad would grab you and take you back to whatever you were doing.

Then why was your dad leading you by the hand through the forest?

You were confused. You don’t remember coming here?

Your dad tells you that you are going home. And he was telling the truth, you were walking back to your house and mom was waiting for you by the back door. The door closes behind you – locked and bolted – and you are put to bed.

You start to remember this after you start going to highschool.

There was another time you were walking in the woods. With your mom this time, and you aren’t walking home, you are leaving your backyard and your dad is standing by the door watching you leave.

The two of you are walking in the woods in the dead of night. Your mom lights your way with a flashlight and you walk but you trip every minute or so on roots and rocks.

You don’t remember what happens but the next morning you are back in your bed again. As if nothing happened.

There was something in the woods. An astral figure said to be either the most beautiful thing a human eye could ever witness or the worst nightmare dragged up from the bottom of hell. Looked at from afar you might see it as a whisk of light. 

It appeared on the day a child was born.


	10. Cold.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Breath)
> 
> You feel weightless.

You look up at the sky – it is unclouded and the stars twinkle down on you along with the moon’s glow.

You float in water – it surrounds you in a cold embrace that you grew to numb to, you have been here for what feels like months, but in reality, you arrive this evening, and you chose to lay in the body of water not too long ago.

You feel weightless – you float.

You feel timeless. As if everything that was before was meaningless and what is to come is more so. Only the here and now mattered. 

You take a deep breath and feel your lungs fill up with cold forest air.


	11. Lost in The Fog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Fog)
> 
> You are stuck in a strange land all alone.

You walk the miles one after another. Your walk is endless and aimless. You have long forgotten where you have originated from, where you started walking from, and – most importantly of them all – where you are going to.

You have a vague sense that you should be worried about this. But you aren’t.

The fog has covered the land, what little you could see was a vast field on either side of the ground road you are walking. Time and time again you can see high-voltage line towers in the distance with wires running all over the place in a symmetrical order that only its designer can find order in. They provide a sense of stability in your quiet world. But they are few and far between.

Sometimes the fog grew so great that you could barely see the ground before you.

Other times the fog stuck only to the very edge of your horizon allowing you to see the field surrounding you and the mountains beyond that.

But there was not a single soul around. No car came down on the road. Nobody worked the fields. Nobody maintained the towers. 

There was nobody here, just you.


	12. Abandon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Abandon)
> 
> It is time to stand on your feet. Something better is waiting for you, hopefully.

You couldn’t complain, you had a good time so far. You did what you needed: you went to school diligently, you completed your college courses, you got a job, and you lived a simple life keeping away from all trouble and pitfalls of life. You are debt-free, which you can only thank whatever deity was looking out for you. You don’t have a family, but you are fine with that. Your colleagues are your friends as well, you spend time with them. You were fine with that, you were happy.

Or you thought you were happy.

One day all of it became inevitable to face.

You weren’t really happy. You just went with the flow. Lived life as it was mandated, or as it was expected. And it was all in vain. 

A life lived by bullet-points and stereotypical expectations could never make you happy. Truly happy. 

So you have reached a crossroad. Now was your time to chose. 

You could continue on like you always did. You will die eventually, those who loved you will bury you one way or another and everyone would move on. You will be mourned and then forgotten like every other human being on the face of planet Earth. But would you reach happiness? 

You wonder if you were any other person would you say yes? Maybe.

But here and now, you say no.

So you pick up your bag and leave your house and you leave behind everything you ever knew. The world was before you and something greater awaits you. In this you were sure.


	13. Harvest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Harvest)
> 
> Nobody seems to notice it, but you do.

There was a strange aftertaste in your mouth. As if you had eaten something slightly rotten – a nice fruity taste with a bitter, awful under taste telling you that what you are eating might be slightly spoiled. This only added to the bad feeling you have been feeling since the beginning of the season. 

You didn’t mention it to anyone. You thought that it was silly; maybe you were coming down with a cold or something, that’s why you are tasting things differently.

But the feeling wouldn’t leave. When the harvest was completed you were left with baskets worth of peaches, all various stages of ripe and all of which are ready to be sent off to the market.

You still had a bad feeling. And so, while nobody was watching, you took one peach out of the basket. You feel guilty over it but you take a bite. The bitter undertaste was still there. But you know that others have eaten these fruits – even on your insistence that they are rotten – but nobody felt it.

Now, you know you should have done something about it. But you didn’t. You let the baskets go out to the market.


	14. Well, so it goes…

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Soul)
> 
> All you want to do is rest in peace in your little cottage. But things are about to change.

Life was never exciting for you. So why should the afterlife be any different? 

You have to say as somebody who believed that there was something out there you were thoroughly disappointed by what you got after you kicked the bucket. Maybe, if you believed in something harder you might have ended up somewhere other than your own home you are stuck haunting. How nice.

It could be worse you suppose. At least you can be in the company of blissful silence in the comfort of your old little cottage house that gets older and older as time goes on. 

Nature starts to reclaim everything slowly. To you, it seems that it happens from one day to the next. One time everything is how you left it the next ivy is climbing in through the windows and spider webs collect dust in the corner. Generations of bugs hatch, grow, and die by the minute. It is all becoming quite reassuring. Nature's steady chaos is something you got used to in your life as you watched the forest from your backyard. It was nice to know that even if you are gone and bound to this Earth some things stay the same.

However, your tranquility is about to be broken. People started to come around. It looks like that your land was purchased by somebody – a family. And they are going to renovate the house – great.

Well, it looks like you might just give this haunting business a go then.


	15. The Worst Witch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Broomstick)
> 
> You might be the worst witch alive, but you are just a newbie so it's justifiable.

Nice job. You actually managed to break it.

Your very first day as a witch’s apprentice, learning the trade and the first thing you do is break your broomstick in half. 

To your defense, the tree came out of nowhere.

Your grandmother – your mentor and local witch – is having a good laugh at your expense.

She tells you that she broke a couple of sticks in her youth as well – which makes her feel nostalgic. It doesn’t help you feel better about it.

She pats you on the back and tells you that she can help you make a new one, - a useful lesson for any witch, you suppose.


	16. The Follower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Foliage)
> 
> You try to enjoy the beauty of nature.

The leaves above you have turned to a beautiful shade of red. You lay in the grass enjoying the view and the warm rays of the sun that fell on the patch of ground you have chosen as your resting place. This was probably one of the last warm autumn days. The nights were already cold and even your sleeping bag and the safety of your tent couldn’t protect you fully from the chill.

At the moment you decide to not care about it, but soon you have to be thinking about moving to a new spot, possibly to a warmer climate if you could – if not then you will have to figure out something, but it wasn’t as if you haven’t dealt with these kinds of things before.

The sun was going down – a shame.

A wind started to blow through the meadow, rustling the leaves above you as it reached you. Some of the weakened leaves gave way and were thorn from the branches. They have been swept away, but not for long and you watched them land in a graceful dance not so far away.

A shiver run’s through you, along with a bad feeling.

The pleasant atmosphere was gone. You had a feeling that something terrible will happen, you don’t know where, you don’t know when, but what you know was that you have to pack your bag, break camp and get the heck out of there as fast as you can.

You leave and you don’t look back.

At the place you once had your camp stands a tall figure. It was pale in color, almost melting into the mist that followed it. Two pinprick white eyes look down the path you took out of the meadow and into the forest. Its thin hands dragged on the ground as it started walking.

The mist slowly followed.


	17. A Friend in Need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Skull)
> 
> It's lonely here, so please take me with you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a bit different. :)

Hello.

How are you?

I’m so glad you are here. Not many people visit.

I’m so lonely. Don’t worry; I will like your company. Even if we just met, I’m sure we are going to be good friends.

You will like me to. I will do my best.

I can tell you things that nobody knows. Secrets that are hidden before mortal eyes and ones you can only see once you have been to the other side of the veil.

I don’t want to lie to you. Even you know that there is danger here, so you have to be careful, paranoid even, just to be safe. But I can help you. I can help you stay safe out there.

I just want one thing from you, my dear friend.

Take me with you.

You can hardly walk without a body.


	18. The Tragedy of My Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Moth)
> 
> You didn't see it.

The light was hanging from a tall pine tree. What an odd but beautiful thing, so much prettier than the moon on high, always out of reach, distant and cold. This one shined with a warm glow. Warm like the fires campers build, but it only burned if your tiny body brushed up against the burning glass. 

The goal, like always, was out of reach- the tragedy of your life.

You didn’t see the hand holding the lamp up. You didn’t notice the mouth open with long teeth inside and a thin long tongue knotted together inside in an inpatient hunger.

It snapped around you and the light was gone.


	19. Don’t Cross Paths with Dying Creatures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Decay)
> 
> The worst thing happened to you.

The moment you saw it you know you have stumbled into the wrong part of the woods.

Your first clue was the sudden silence that settled on the woods along with you – not a bird tweet or a branch snapping could be heard, even the rustling of the leaves have stopped as if the wind itself ceased blowing.

You contemplate going back, but then you thought that you are simply paranoid. Now you know you should have done so when you first got that doubt wriggling in the back of your head. 

Now you could feel eyes on you.

The leaves above you started to crinkle and fall as brown shriveled up husks of their former selves. The trees followed as they grew dry and crooked, turning their heads down as their branches curled inward and the barks flaked off.

Your blood ran cold. In a split-second decision, you jump off the path into the graying shrubbery and behind the dying husk of a great oak tree. You get out of the confines of your backpack and you press your body against the trunk. You pray and pray that you weren’t heard.

You can feel yourself aging as well.

There was a thump. Then another. 

You didn’t dare to look. But if you were your would have seen two spindly spider-like legs – covered in coarse hair and veins running up and down on it – walk sluggishly on the road you traveled on. They come from high up - way, way up – maybe even higher than the great pines you thought could reach the sky.

Whatever it was, it walked with the sluggishness of a sick man – slow and taking breaks between steps to ready for the next. 

It groaned and it sounded like a deep rumble that reverberated in your chest. You press a hand on your mouth to keep you from making any noise, even on accident.

When it was gone everything remained silent. For a long time, you sat there petrified. 

When you moved next you were slow and sluggish. You know what happened to you but you would only confirm it when you next looked in the window of a store in the next town that happened in your way. Your hair was gray, your face wrinkled and your eyes baggy, your back ached and your bag felt heavier than ever and you leaned on your walking stick more than ever.

But you suppose, worse could have happened to you.


	20. Another World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Folklore)
> 
> Those old stories are not for you.

You can always hear stories; there will always be people to tell them. Old stories from the times gone by, but still lingering in a different age they do not belong to, telling of perils and terrors hidden beyond a world that’s not your own. 

Hearing them seems so foreign now. Listening as if the stories themselves were a relic from the past – something to gawk at, telling you to stay out of the woods, avoid angering the spirits dwelling in waters, and beware this and that. It seemed that danger lurked all over.

The closest forest you can think of was the tiny park close to your apartment. The closes water was the little river, barely a stream that ran under the bridge of the road you walked down to your office. 

You had to admit, those stories just weren’t for you.


	21. The Camp, Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Timber)
> 
> The lumber camp was long abandoned. Yet it is clear that something happened here.

The camp stood abandoned. 

The evidence of life was there: work half-finished, tools scattered in an unorganized mess, food on the tables were left for the crows to eat.

This was a lumber camp. Wood that was cut down and ready to be loaded onto trucks were stacked in piles by the wayside, axes and saws were placed about as if the workers only left for a brief break. But the grass and weed grew up waist-high around the camp, trailer doors were wide open and their contents scattered around. The cabin door was open and paper – no doubt important documents once – were blown about by the wind, finding a resting place among the rubber or the former camp.

Once people worked here. Now, nobody dared to approach it. Nobody dared to talk about in fear of sounding mad – or worse, it finding them.


	22. The Meal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Creature (is this a freebie? : ) .))
> 
> With a struggle, a monster managed to hunt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Description (not graphic) of animal death and eating said animal.

Ripping out meat with flat and dull teeth is a harder task than one would imagine. It would have been made easier if there was a force behind its bite, but hunger had weakened it so much that most it could do was to nibble on the prey before it, spitting out the blood that culminated in its lower jaw, and hoping that eventually one bit of morsel here and there will give away for it to swallow.

The kill was hard. It could barely run after the deer it tracked for never-ending miles. Every muscle in its arms and legs ached and its back was so sore that it thought that they won’t be able to carry it any further. 

Thankfully it didn’t need to chase the deer for that long. The poor thing was exhausted by the end and in the last steps collapse even before its assailant caught up to it.

Then the creature broke the animal’s neck, killing it.

But that was the last of its strength, and it didn’t even have enough left to pull a leg free.

It tried grabbing it by hand and pulling, but its arms were tingling from exhaustion. It tried biting, that worked better and some of the deer’s meat tore off. But it was meager, only enough to give it a taste of the long-desired meal that it was deprived of for so long. But it won’t be enough, it would never be enough.

The size of the deer was barely anything. The creature was four times bigger than any animal living in this forest. To satiate its hunger it would need several more deers a day to be satisfied.

Once it finished, bite after painful bite – slowly and painfully as its stomach started to grumble louder with every minute and every new bite that went down its gullet. In the end, it looked at the bloodied skeleton with chunks of precious meat still stuck to it. 

With a sigh, it bit down on the closest bone until it gives out. Then swallowed it all.


	23. Undercover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Mushroom)
> 
> There is something hidden in the woods.

Between the upturned roots of an ancient pine tree, a colony of mushrooms flourished. Underneath them, a bed of soft moss grabbed onto the side of the pine and encased the figure laying underneath it. If you looked at it from the right angle the shape of a skull, a bit lower the ridges of the ribcage and in a twisted angle a bit farther away is the hipbone, more visible than the rest with only a thin layer of moss covering it. 

This poor soul perished a long time ago. Since then the forest encased it, took him in, and made him part of their world, be it bedding for moss and mushrooms or nourishment for worms and bugs.

Years later he will be gone, swallowed by the ground. Never to be found.


	24. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Lost)
> 
> You are here to get lost and to make the worst decision of your life. Not as if you care anymore.

You were walking and walking and walking until you started feeling that you are going in aimless circles, and every part of the forest started melting together into a mass of familiar and foreign pictures of trees and shrubs and rotting trunks. You think you have seen that fallen tree leaning onto another pine before, from a different angle. You think you have seen that bush before, and that tree with that knot on the base of its branch.

But you didn’t really care. You were here to get lost. Lost to the outside world and from the responsibilities that cascade upon you the moment you leave the sanctity of the woods.

Call it childish, irresponsible, foolish, but you have had enough.

If you could stay here forever – as long as you can walk then perish when your feet can not carry you anymore and die in dehydration or starvation, whichever gets to you first.


	25. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Foraging)
> 
> You longed for a simpler, solitary life.

Anything is good, and as long as you are good you can find anything. As any scavenger worth their money, you could find what you needed in the forest and on the beaches of your home. This was your land, your element. It could give you everything you could possibly need: food, water, shelter, it can be all yours if you were willing to work for it. It was living, simple living without the worries and stresses of your formal life. There was nothing there for you only pain and stress and suffering. So you left it all behind – it might have been a mistake, in the first days you thought so when it was hard to get by. But that didn’t change the fact that you wanted to do it. You burned all the bridges back home, this was where you belonged now – this is where you want to be. And you got amazing at living in this new world. You have become a proper forest dweller, you feel like you can take on the whole world. After all, this is where you long to be.


	26. Ghost Guests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Haunted)
> 
> You are pretty sure that your house is haunted.

Things were moving around the house. You are pretty sure about that.

Your keys were found in the living room instead of the bowl in the hall. Your slippers weren’t by your bed in the morning. You were pretty sure you slipped out of them the moment you got into bed. Instead, they were found in the kitchen, so unless you are secretly a sleep-eater drawn to your fridge like a moth to the light, then you have a serious problem.

If this was all that happened then you would just chalk it up to you forgetting things, but more and more things go missing. Things that you have been putting in the same place for years now have decided to do a disappearing act on you. Something was terribly wrong here.

You haven’t moved into a haunted house, you have been living here for six years now.

Maybe you haven’t noticed it until now? Maybe the ghosts were chill with you being here until one day they decided they weren’t? Maybe you fucked up somehow and got them mad?

It is funny how your mind immediately jumped to the “obvious” conclusion of having a haunted house the moment something like this happens.

So you crossed your fingers and hope for the best. The best in this situation is that it will stop – especially stop before you somehow manage to lose something that was important, like your ID card or wallet or documents – you really hope they don’t get to them.


	27. The Face of Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Death)
> 
> A predator hunts in the forest, stalking its prey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Description of anima death and blood.

Tonight, under the gaze of the moon, in the depths of the forest, you are the face of death. 

It was a matter of time.

Hunched on your fours you stalked through the underbrush, sticking as close to the ground as you could. Before you, a herd of deer was standing on high alert. You made the mistake of stepping on a branch making it snap loudly. You were only lucky that they didn’t bolt then and there.

You get closer and closer. You can already feel the taste of raw meat in your mouth.

When the moment was right you jump.

You are the face of death, but only for one minute- but that moment etched into your mind for an eternity to come. 

The long stalking and waiting, with the stress and tension building up in your muscles making you feel as if you could snap in any moment and tear your body apart. But then you jump, you snap your jaws on your prey’s neck; you feel the blood rushing down on your throat as you tackle the animal to the ground.

You hold on as it struggles. 

You are much stronger and so you hold it with ease. And you pant but you want to scream.

And, like that the moment passes. The body stills and so does your heart.

All of it is over.


	28. Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Woodland)
> 
> It's hard to keep moving on. But for your safety, you have to.

The clock was ticking on your life. 

You can feel the change coming for a time. It was in the air. It loomed over you for weeks now. It settled onto your chest, suffocating you with killing intent. Every moment this feeling arrives you pack your bag and leave the place you have been staying no matter how lovely it was.

How you can do it is beyond you. But the feeling of dread always won over your want to stay in the new paradise you found for yourself.

You often find solace in nature. Getting lost in the woods wasn’t as troublesome to you as it would be to others. To you, it brings relief, happiness even. The forest surrounding you gave you a sense of ease. Knowing that you were alone gave you peace. There is nothing more you could want but the endless wilderness that’s right before you with all its dangers and hardships that it could offer.

After all, everything was better than the unspeakable thing that kept following you.

Your moments of peace were fleeting, but you do your best to keep yourself out of the bad situation you could land yourself in.


	29. Feather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Feather)
> 
> An old nest sits on top of a tree.

Sitting on the top of the tree, nestled safely between two sturdy branches a nice nest was built in the spring. Once it was a bustling little home with two parent birds busily flying back and forth, delivering much needed bugs and worms to their demanding chicks. Now the autumn wind blows through the barren trees, ripping off what little leaves remained on them.

Its inhabitants have long since flown away to warmer climates. All that remained was an old and worn nest, well-loved and used. 

What remained in the empty nest were old feathers, stuck among the branches. It was the last evidence that anybody lived there.

A harsh wind heralded in the winter.


	30. Closed Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Old)
> 
> You are visiting an old house today.

If there was one word that could describe the room it would be deathly stillness.

You could feel it in the air all around you. As you entered the creaking of the old wood door sounded deafening, it stopped you in your track. The only light was the one you let in – as it encased your form and threw your long silhouette across the wood floorboards.

As your eyes adjusted to the darkness you could see the thick layer of dust covering every surface – it’s a wonder that you didn’t kick up more than you did when you opened the door. Next, you noticed the spider webs in every corner collecting dust and the dry husks of bugs – some were even hanging from the ceiling in clumps of dirt and bug carcasses. 

You didn’t expect a four-star hotel when coming here, but you wouldn’t have thought how empty the room was considering how it was suddenly abandoned and locked up. What was left in the room was a broken bed frame in the left-hand corner, most of the boards were broken as if somebody was thrown on it and broke it straight down in the middle.

You have no idea what happened here, well, not entirely. You know that a man lived here, a long time ago. Not much was known about him. Only that he kept to himself, he was really quiet, and he would look at everybody as if he was waiting for some fundamental, life-changing fact to be dropped on him. And maybe that did happen one day, because all of a sudden he packed up and left, his house – a small one-room cottage-like house on the edge of town – was left there abandoned, boarded up and locked under heavy chains and locks. He still owned it, technically, until lately. That’s when it got into your possession. 

The rest of the room was normal considering how old this place it was. Right before you, there was an old stove, under the boarded up window, not far there was a table and an overturned chair. And that was pretty much it.

Stepping in you felt as if you have entered another world, one left behind by time while simultaneously devastated by age and decay. 

It felt wrong to go further. You felt as if the stillness of life should not be disturbed here.

So you stand there waiting for something to happen, something to make the decision for you to make a move – to get in and explore or to slam the door shut and never speak of it again. 

But maybe it was for the best if you just closed the door and hired some company to level this place to the ground as some inkling of a thought started to move in the back of your mind: this place shouldn’t exist.

And at the end that was all the motivation you needed. You close the door, lock it back up, and left. But you cannot help the heavy feeling of unease that followed you home. 

It must be your imagination, but in the last couple of days, you think your apartment is so much quieter and colder than it used to be. A thin layer of dust covered your furniture, even as you just cleaned yesterday.


	31. Beware

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Prompt word: Beware)
> 
> Some parting words.

Beware the things that go bump in the night. Childish fears of the unknown and old paranoia surround dark and abandoned corners of the Earth. Simply the fact that this place is devoid of human life is enough to move us out of our comfort zone. Everything turns cold and strange, the darkness swallows up everything and if you can’t see two feet further than you used to you feel cornered, alone, vulnerable. 

Most people try to rationalize it away as them just being silly or being spooked by all the superficially scary things around them. Maybe a horror movie started like this, you can see it happen, and maybe your mind is now fishing up all those forgotten old memories to put you in flight or flight mode so that if something happens, a twig snaps, a bird flies away, you too can act accordingly. It’s silly human nature, after all, it helped us survive, but now we all know there aren’t monsters in the woods.

But, for some of us, the question still lingers. What if?

What if there is really something out there? What if there is really something hiding just beyond the veil of darkness with its eyes trained on us and its teeth bared and claws twitching in anticipation? 

What if there was really something out there to fear? What if we are too silly to see it?

Like children so reassured because we haven’t been burned before and therefore we do not fear the fire. That does not change the fact that fire does exist, and the danger is still there and if we were to stretch out our hands we would be burned for sure. 

Could it be that the unknown was just like that? Just waiting for an opportunity to burn us so that we would never put our hands in the fire so that we would never step foot into abandoned and darkened corners of the Earth because that’s its domain and we are not welcomed there. Who is to say that didn’t happen before? We do fear the dark, don’t we? Maybe there is a reason for it, beyond evolution. 

Anyways – be safe out there. Avoid strangers and don’t go out at night. Stay inside, far from anything that could harm you. Stay safe and far from the dark and from the abandoned ruins of past lives. You never could know who might live there now.


End file.
